FOCUS: Liza Batkin | Clarence Thomas's Friend of the Court

 

 

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FOCUS: Liza Batkin | Clarence Thomas's Friend of the Court
Liza Batkin, The New Yorker
Batkin writes: "Thomas claims that Harlan Crow's extravagant gifts were tokens of friendship. Why do the Justices so often emphasize personal relationships?"

Thomas claims that Harlan Crow’s extravagant gifts were tokens of friendship. Why do the Justices so often emphasize personal relationships?

Every year, judges and Justices release information about their finances. Under a rule designed to maintain public trust in the courts, disclosures must include any gifts worth more than four hundred and fifteen dollars, as well as bonds, stocks, and other assets valued at more than a thousand dollars. When ProPublica reported earlier this month that Justice Clarence Thomas had failed to disclose opulent trips funded by a conservative billionaire, Harlan Crow, the Justice denied violating the rule. Thomas explained in a public statement that Crow and Crow’s wife, Kathy, were among his and his wife’s “dearest friends,” and that he had been advised that “personal hospitality from close personal friends” need not be disclosed.

A statement from Crow twinned Thomas’s. Crow said that he and his wife had been “friends with Justice Thomas and his wife Ginni since 1996,” that the two couples were “very dear friends,” and that the Crows were fortunate to have a “great life of many friends.” Crow claimed that he never talked about Supreme Court cases with Thomas or tried to influence him “on any legal or political issue.” He was also unaware of anyone else doing so on their trips. “These are gatherings of friends,” he said.

The defenses shared a crutch. Like notes scrawled at the end of a yearbook, they invoked friendship over and over, sometimes twice in a sentence. The incantations seemed designed to show that Crow’s gifts were hospitality, which, as Thomas claimed, would not have needed to be disclosed. Yet many experts understand that exception—defined in the law as food, lodging, or entertainment—not to include the jet flights, island-hopping yacht trips, and exclusive retreats that Crow gave Thomas.

The rule on financial disclosure is one of the few that bind Supreme Court Justices. Other federal judges follow a code of conduct with both specific and broad constraints. The code bans political endorsements and tells judges to act in a way that avoids the “appearance of impropriety” and promotes “public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.” Efforts to hold the Supreme Court to similar standards have so far failed, but the Senate Judiciary Committee has achieved more modest steps. It has, for instance, pressured the agency that interprets the financial-disclosure rule to clarify the “hospitality” loophole that Thomas is now invoking. Last month, the agency put out new guidance that specifically tells judges and Justices to disclose trips on private jets and nights at resorts that are gifted to them. (Thomas said, in his statement, that he would comply with the new guidelines.)

Even if Thomas’s defense is fallacious, it was apt: the Court has often inspired a strange and almost fetishistic fixation on friendship. The closeness of Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, despite their opposition on legal issues, is so famous that it inspired an opera. The libretto’s main duet, “We Are Different. We Are One,” features the lines: “Sep’rate strands unite in friction / To protect our country’s core.” The two Justices indeed watched operas, celebrated New Year’s Eve, and spent time in India together—events that have been rehashed in many articles praising a relationship that transcended ideology.

In the past few years, as the Court has battled loudening claims of illegitimacy, friendship has stayed a common refrain. At oral arguments for Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked whether a Court that took away abortion rights could “survive the stench” of partisanship. The same could have been asked last spring, after text messages showed Clarence Thomas’s wife, Ginni Thomas, conspiring to keep President Joe Biden out of office. But, at a convention last spring, Sotomayor took a different tone than she had in the Dobbs arguments. She encouraged the audience to believe in the judiciary and singled out Justice Thomas as someone who “cares deeply about the Court as an institution.” The two of them shared a common understanding about “people and kindness,” she said, which was why she could be “friends with him” despite their “difference of opinions in cases.”

In January, 2022, after NPR reported that Sotomayor was joining arguments remotely because her neighbor on the bench, Justice Neil Gorsuch, was refusing to wear a mask, the two put out a joint statement. They reassured the public that, though the two may “sometimes disagree about the law,” they were “warm colleagues and friends.” Around the same time, Justice Stephen Breyer announced that he would retire. Each of the remaining members of the Court put out a statement, and all but Justice Samuel Alito’s referred to Breyer as a friend, a “dear friend,” or the “best possible friend.” (Alito’s tribute was also warm and called the retired Justice “friendly.”) Justice Thomas’s said that he loves him.

There is ritual in these shows of camaraderie. The Justices seem to hope that waving their unlikely friendships around like bundles of sage will rid the Court of its partisan “stench.” If Sotomayor thinks Thomas is upright and principled, rather than a right-wing ideologue, maybe we should, too. If Ginsburg stayed close with Scalia even after he witheringly dissented from her majority opinion, in United States v. Virginia, that it was unconstitutional to exclude women from a military academy, then he must not have been sexist, or at least not intolerably so.

But too much has been made of the Justices’ friendships—just as Justice Thomas wants us to make too little of his with Crow. Collegiality does not take the place of oversight. There is essentially no mechanism to enforce even the relatively limited ethics rules that the Justices must follow, and which Thomas now appears to have broken. Under the fiction of judicial friendship, as long as the Justices have faith in one another, so must we all have faith in them.

If Thomas’s failure to disclose his lavish trips with Crow was only ambiguously unethical, newer revelations are more clear-cut. According to a report last Thursday by ProPublica, one of Crow’s companies bought three properties from Justice Thomas and his family in 2014. Thomas’s mother still lives in one. Despite rules that require federal officials to disclose most real-estate sales that are worth more than a thousand dollars, the Justice reportedly did not divulge the deal. (Thomas did not respond to ProPublica’s questions about the properties’ sale.)

Shortly after ProPublica’s first story, Senator Dick Durbin said the Judiciary Committee, which he chairs, would act. A few days later, he sent a letter to Chief Justice John Roberts, announcing that the committee would hold a hearing. It urged the Chief Justice to do his own part by opening an investigation and taking “all needed action to prevent further misconduct.” What form that action could take is hard to imagine. Probing Thomas’s potential misconduct would fray the trust that binds the Justices, but doing nothing would further erode the public’s trust in them. On Thursday, in a new letter citing “a steady stream of revelations regarding Justices falling short of the ethical standards,” Durbin asked Roberts or another Justice of his choice to testify at the committee’s hearing, which will be held early next month. If he accepts the invitation, Roberts might have to decide what a friendship is worth.

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Alito’s Mother: “Of Course He’s Against Abortion”

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April 21, 2023 HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

April 21, 2023 HEATHER COX RICHARDSON APR 22 Tomorrow is Earth Day, celebrated for the first time in 1970. Coming the same week that House Republicans demanded that Congress rescind the money Democrats appropriated in the Inflation Reduction Act to address climate change, Earth Day in 2023 is a poignant reminder of an earlier era, one in which Americans recognized a crisis that transcended partisanship and came together to fix it. The spark for the first Earth Day was the 1962 publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. A marine biologist and best-selling author, Carson showed the devastating effects of people on nature by documenting the effect of modern pesticides on the natural world. She focused on the popular pesticide DDT, which had been developed in 1939 and used to clear islands in the South Pacific of malaria-carrying mosquitoes during World War II. Deployed as an insect killer in the U.S. after the war, DDT was poisoning the natural food chain in American waters. DDT sprayed on vegetation washed into the oceans. It concentrated in fish, which were then eaten by birds of prey, especially ospreys. The DDT caused the birds to lay eggs with abnormally thin eggshells, so thin the eggs cracked in the nest when the parent birds tried to incubate them. And so the birds began to die off. Carson was unable to interest any publishing company in the story of DDT. Finally, frustrated at the popular lack of interest in the reasons for the devastation of birds, she decided to write the story anyway, turning out a highly readable book with 55 pages of footnotes to make her case. When The New Yorker began to serialize Carson’s book in June 1962, chemical company leaders were scathing. “If man were to faithfully follow the teachings of Miss Carson," an executive of the American Cyanamid Company said, "we would return to the Dark Ages, and the insects and diseases and vermin would once again inherit the earth." Officers of Monsanto questioned Carson's sanity. But her portrait of the dangerous overuse of chemicals and their effect on living organisms caught readers’ attention. They were willing to listen. Carson’s book sold more than half a million copies in 24 countries.  Democratic president John F. Kennedy asked the President’s Science Advisory Committee to look into Carson’s argument, and the committee vindicated her. Before she died of breast cancer in 1964, Carson noted: "Man's attitude toward nature is today critically important simply because we have now acquired a fateful power to alter and destroy nature. But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself? [We are] challenged as mankind has never been challenged before to prove our maturity and our mastery, not of nature, but of ourselves."   Meanwhile, a number of scientists followed up on Carson’s argument and in 1967 organized  the Environmental Defense Fund to protect the environment by lobbying for a ban on DDT. As they worked, Americans began to pay closer attention to human effects on the environment, especially after three crucial moments: First, on December 24, 1968, William Anders took a color picture of the Earth rising over the horizon of the moon from outer space during the Apollo 8 mission, powerfully illustrating the beauty and isolation of the globe on which we all live.  Then, over 10 days in January–February 1969, a massive oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara, California, poured between 80,000 and 100,000 barrels of oil into the Pacific, fouling 35 miles of California beaches and killing seabirds, dolphins, sea lions, and elephant seals. Public outrage ran so high that President Nixon himself, a Republican, went to Santa Barbara in March to see the cleanup efforts, telling the American public that “the Santa Barbara incident has frankly touched the conscience of the American people.”  And then, in June 1969, the chemical contaminants that had been dumped into Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River caught fire. A dumping ground for local heavy industry, the river had actually burned more than ten times in the previous century, but with increased focus on environmental damage, this time the burning river garnered national attention. In February 1970, President Richard M. Nixon sent to Congress a special message “on environmental quality.” “[W]e…have too casually and too long abused our natural environment,” he wrote. “The time has come when we can wait no longer to repair the damage already done, and to establish new criteria to guide us in the future.” “The tasks that need doing require money, resolve and ingenuity,” Nixon said, “and they are too big to be done by government alone. They call for fundamentally new philosophies of land, air and water use, for stricter regulation, for expanded government action, for greater citizen involvement, and for new programs to ensure that government, industry and individuals all are called on to do their share of the job and to pay their share of the cost.” Nixon called for a 37-point program with 23 legislative proposals and 14 new administrative measures to control water and air pollution, manage solid waste, protect parklands and public recreation, and organize for action. “As we deepen our understanding of complex ecological processes, as we improve our technologies and institutions and learn from experience, much more will be possible,” he said. “But these 37 measures represent actions we can take now, and that can move us dramatically forward toward what has become an urgent common goal of all Americans: the rescue of our natural habitat as a place both habitable and hospitable to man.”  Meanwhile, Gaylord Nelson, a Democratic senator from Wisconsin, visited the Santa Barbara oil spill and hoped to turn the same sort of enthusiasm people were bringing to protests against the Vietnam War to efforts to protect the environment. He announced a teach-in on college campuses, which soon grew into a wider movement across the country. Their “Earth Day,” held on April 22, 1970, brought more than 20 million Americans—10% of the total population of the country at the time—to call for the nation to address the damage caused by 150 years of unregulated industrial development. The movement included members of all political parties, rich Americans and their poorer neighbors, people who lived in the city and those in the country, labor leaders and their employers. It is still one of the largest protests in American history. In July, at the advice of a council convened to figure out how to consolidate government programs to combat pollution, Nixon proposed to Congress a new agency, the Environmental Protection Agency, which Congress created in 1970. This new agency assumed responsibility for the federal regulation of pesticides, and after the Environmental Defense Fund filed suit, in June 1972 the EPA banned DDT. Four months later, Congress passed the Clean Water Act, establishing protections for water quality and regulating pollutant discharges into waters of the United States.  Today, even as Republicans are attacking the EPA by suggesting that Congress cannot delegate major regulatory powers to it, President Joe Biden issued an executive order to promote environmental justice. In the past generation we have come to understand that pollution hits minority and poor populations far harder than it does wealthy white communities: the government and private companies target Indigenous reservations for the storage of nuclear waste, for example, because the reservations are not covered by the same environmental and health standards as the rest of the country. Today, Biden said, “To fulfill our Nation’s promises of justice, liberty, and equality, every person must have clean air to breathe; clean water to drink; safe and healthy foods to eat; and an environment that is healthy, sustainable, climate-resilient, and free from harmful pollution and chemical exposure. Restoring and protecting a healthy environment—wherever people live, play, work, learn, grow, and worship—is a matter of justice and a fundamental duty that the Federal Government must uphold on behalf of all people.” Amen.  Happy Earth Day 2023. [Earthrise, taken on December 24, 1968, by Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders, NASA, Public Domain, gathered from Wikipedia] — Notes: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/20/house-gop-debt-limit-plan-inflation-reduction-act-00092891 https://www.nrdc.org/stories/story-silent-spring https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/special-message-the-congress-environmental-quality https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-following-inspection-oil-damage-santa-barbara-beach https://www.epa.gov/history/origins-epa https://www.earthday.org/history/ https://www.epa.gov/archive/epa/aboutepa/ddt-regulatory-history-brief-survey-1975.html https://www.nps.gov/articles/story-of-the-fire.htm. https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/discover-history-clean-water-act https://nelsonearthday.net/gaylord-nelson-earth-day-origins/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2023/04/21/executive-order-on-revitalizing-our-nations-commitment-to-environmental-justice-for-all/

Fed’s Beige Book: The Credit Crunch Has Arrived in New York, California and Texas

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Fed’s Beige Book: The Credit Crunch Has Arrived in New York, California and Texas

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: April 20, 2023

On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve released its Beige Book, a compilation of current economic conditions in each of its 12 Federal Reserve districts. The information that was collected in each of the regional reports was gathered on or before April 10 – so it is relatively current.

It is not a good sign that three of the Fed districts that pump out a significant chunk of U.S. GDP reported that bank credit had tightened noticeably, ostensibly as fallout from the banking collapses in March and depositor runs.

The New York Fed reported that credit conditions in the Second Fed District, which includes New York state, the 12 northern counties of New Jersey, Connecticut’s Fairfield County, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, “deteriorated sharply.” It summarized the situation as follows:

“Conditions in the broad finance sector deteriorated sharply coinciding with recent stress in the banking sector. Small to medium-sized banks in the District reported widespread declines in loan demand across all loan segments. Credit standards tightened noticeably for all loan types, and loan spreads continued to narrow. Deposit [interest] rates moved higher. Finally, delinquency rates edged up on residential and commercial mortgages.”

One of the banks that failed in March and was put into receivership by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) was Signature Bank, which was headquartered in Manhattan. Signature Bank was the third largest bank failure in U.S. history.

The San Francisco Fed, whose District has been the epicenter of collapsing banks and/or their share prices, reported the following regarding credit conditions:

“Lending activity fell significantly in recent weeks amid higher interest rates and elevated uncertainty in the banking sector. Lending standards tightened notably, and several depository institutions opted to reduce loan volumes, especially for new clients, despite reporting ample liquidity. Reports indicated that existing and planned projects across sectors were delayed or cancelled due to higher funding costs, heightened uncertainty, and more limited access to credit. Following recent volatility in deposit levels at regional and community banks, outflows have reportedly stabilized since late March.”

The second largest bank failure in U.S. history, Silicon Valley Bank, occurred in March in this District. See our report: Silicon Valley Bank Was a Wall Street IPO Pipeline in Drag as a Federally-Insured Bank; FHLB of San Francisco Was Quietly Bailing It Out. (The largest bank failure in U.S. history was Washington Mutual, which occurred during the financial crisis of 2008.)

A federally-insured bank that had immersed itself in crypto-related deposits, Silvergate Bank, headquartered in California, also failed in March but was allowed to wind itself down. There continue to be growing concerns about the survivability of San Francisco-based First Republic Bank, whose stock price has lost 90 percent of its value year-to-date. See our report from yesterday: Liquor Sales Will Be Brisk on Wall Street Ahead of First Republic Bank’s Earnings Report on Monday.

Although it was not clear why, the Dallas Fed also reported a particularly dour outlook in its district, writing as follows:

“Loan demand continued to decline in March as bankers reported worsening business activity. Loan volumes fell, driven largely by a sharp contraction in consumer loans. Loan performance worsened slightly overall. Credit standards and terms tightened sharply, and marked increases in loan pricing were noted. Banking outlooks continued to deteriorate, with contacts expecting a contraction in loan demand and business activity and an increase in nonperforming loans over the next six months. Increased uncertainty and lack of confidence resulting from the recent banking issues were cited as concerns.”

The revelations in the Beige Book are compatible with the Fed’s separate data on total bank credit at all commercial banks, which plunged by $300 billion between March 15 and April 5, the latest data available. That is a dramatic decline in the span of three weeks. (See chart above.)

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Mark Joseph Stern | Why the Supreme Court Halted the Plot to Ban the Abortion Pill

 

 

22 April 23

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Mark Joseph Stern | Why the Supreme Court Halted the Plot to Ban the Abortion Pill
Mark Joseph Stern, Slate
Stern writes: "On Friday evening, the Supreme Court halted U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk's unprecedented effort to remove a key abortion drug, mifepristone, from the market nationwide." 

Mifepristone will remain legal in blue states, despite a lawless judicial effort to ban it.

On Friday evening, the Supreme Court halted U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s unprecedented effort to remove a key abortion drug, mifepristone, from the market nationwide. The order, which appears to be 7–2, ensures that mifepristone will remain legal and accessible in states where it remains lawful to prescribe. Only Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito noted their dissents, but not a single justice even tried to defend the decision by Kacsmaryk, a Donald Trump appointee whose ruling earlier this month represented a particularly lawless attempt to assert power over the Food and Drug Administration. Friday’s stay sends a strong message to the lower courts that SCOTUS will not entertain this cynical attempt to impose new nationwide restrictions—and potentially even a ban—on abortion.

As is often the case with shadow docket decisions, Friday’s order does not provide a reason for the Supreme Court’s action. It merely freezes Kacsmaryk’s ruling while the appeals process proceeds. But it is certainly a good omen for the ultimate outcome of this case. Even the two dissenters could not bring themselves to pretend that the lower courts got it right. (Technically, on the shadow docket, a justice can dissent without noting their vote, but it is rare.) Thomas didn’t even explain his vote, while Alito railed against the court’s emergency order to preserve access to medication abortion. He quoted recent opinions by Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Amy Coney Barrett that had cautioned against abuse of the shadow docket, and accused his fellow justices of hypocrisy for intervening here.

“I did not agree with these criticisms at the time,” Alito huffed, “but if they were warranted in the cases in which they were made, they are emphatically true here.” He further asserted that the court had no reason to step in, because the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit had “narrowed” Kacsmaryk’s order. If SCOTUS allowed that order to take effect, he wrote, it would merely reinstate mifepristone restrictions that have been lifted since 2016.

That’s not remotely true: The 5th Circuit’s decision would bar mifepristone’s manufacturer from distributing the drug for months; Alito wrote that the FDA could avoid these problems by exercising its “enforcement discretion”—creating massive regulatory uncertainty and raising the very real possibility that Kacsmaryk could hold both FDA officials and drugmakers in contempt. The 5th Circuit’s decision would have also removed the generic version from the market entirely, jeopardizing access in all 50 states. Practical implications aside, the move is also problematic for the separation in powers: If allowed to stand, it would’ve forced the FDA to violate federal law by pulling a drug from the market without following the mandatory procedures that Congress laid out. (Mifepristone is one of two drugs used in a medication abortion, along with misoprostol. While misoprostol can terminate a pregnancy by itself, mifepristone reduces the risk of side effects and complications.)

Alito then criticized castigated U.S. District Judge Thomas O. Rice, a Barack Obama appointee in Washington State, for issuing a competing injunction that preserved access to mifepristone in 17 states and the District of Columbia. Rice, he wrote, had gone beyond what the FDA requested by giving it relief that it “had never hinted it was contemplating.” And he castigated the Biden Administration for failing to swiftly appeal Rice’s order, charging it with “leverag[ing]” the injunction to implement “a desired policy while evading both necessary agency procedures and judicial review.”

Conspicuously absent from Alito’s dissent was even a single sentence trying to justify the actions of Kacsmaryk and the 5th Circuit. That is likely because the lower courts’ decisions were indefensible. This case, brought by far-right law firm Alliance Defending Freedom, asked the judiciary to contort a number of bedrock legal principles to overturn the FDA’s 23-year-old approval of mifepristone. The plaintiffs are a group of anti-abortion doctors who do not prescribe the medication. To establish standing, they claimed they might one day treat a patient injured by mifepristone, a totally conjectural future “injury” that may well never happen. To claim that the medication is dangerous, they rejected more than 100 scientific studies proving it’s safe and effective, and instead cited anonymous blog posts from an anti-abortion website. To seek relief, they asked for a nationwide decree overruling the FDA’s approval of the drug, removing it from the market even in states where abortion remains perfectly legal.

None of this made sense. A hypothetical future injury that rests on a series of conjectures does not establish standing. A judge cannot toss out real scientific evidence in favor of baseless propaganda. And no court can simply yank a drug from the market by overriding FDA approval —which is why no court has ever tried to do so until now. Even setting all that aside, this litigation came far, far too late to meet the six-year statute of limitations for such challenges. Kacsmaryk waved away all these problems in a stridently ideological opinion shot through with fervent anti-abortion rhetoric. The 5th Circuit attempted a similar trick. The Supreme Court declined to play along. It appears that even Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, John Roberts, and Amy Coney Barrett would not entertain this outrageous manipulation of the federal judiciary to override democratic decision-making.

It is conceivable that SCOTUS’ conservative supermajority may one day entertain a different, more plausible challenge to medication abortion, perhaps by misreading the Comstock Act to transform the mailing of mifepristone into a criminal offense. But this case was an embarrassment from the start, and it gave the justices no credible excuse to side with the plaintiffs. A panel of judges from the 5th Circuit—one that’s different from the panel that upheld much of Kacsmaryk’s decision—will soon hear the case and issue a decision; if the plaintiffs prevail, the government will appeal their ruling to SCOTUS, and the justices will face this question again. All the while, thanks to Friday’s stay, the judicially imposed barriers to mifepristone will remain on ice, and blue state residents can still freely access the medication. This battle isn’t over, but the Supreme Court has now sent a very strong signal that it has little patience for this type of grievous abuse of the federal judiciary.

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Alexei Navalny. (photo: Getty Images)

Navalny Assaulted by Guards in Russian Prison, Western Allies Allege
Alexander Nazaryan, Yahoo! News
Nazaryan writes: "Alexei Navalny, the dissident political leader now languishing in a remote Russian penal colony, has been assaulted by prison guards there, his allies say, suggesting a potential escalation of the tactics the 46-year-old Kremlin foe may be facing."  

Alexei Navalny, the dissident political leader now languishing in a remote Russian penal colony, has been assaulted by prison guards there, his allies say, suggesting a potential escalation of the tactics the 46-year-old Kremlin foe may be facing.

“They grabbed Navalny, they kicked him in the groin, and then they physically pinned him to the wall," Anna Veduta, a Washington-based vice president of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, told Yahoo News.

She said she could not provide details on his condition, given the difficulty of conveying information out of the penal colony, IK-6, where he has been held for almost a year.

The news comes days after Navalny’s associates in the West said he was rapidly losing weight, potentially because prison authorities were administering low doses of poison.

“They kill him slowly,” Veduta told Yahoo News late last year.

A former attorney, Navalny launched a pro-democracy movement that irked the Kremlin. Despite near-total control of Russian political and civic life, President Vladimir Putin has relentlessly hounded opposition figures and apostates. Many have been poisoned, shot, thrown out of windows or left to die in prison.

This week also saw another dissident, Vladimir Kara-Murza, sentenced to 25 years in prison for his opposition to Putin and the war in Ukraine. Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, arrested in Russia earlier this month on fictitious espionage charges, also appeared in a Moscow courtroom this week.

The news of Navalny’s apparently deteriorating health comes just weeks after a documentary about his fight against Putin’s autocratic regime won an Academy Award, a development that could have hardly pleased Moscow.

Titled simply “Navalny,” the film chronicles his recuperation in Germany from an attempted Kremlin poisoning in 2020. It ends with Navalny’s dramatic return to Russia, where he is promptly arrested. He was sentenced last year to more than a decade in prison on fraudulent corruption charges.

Coming home to Russia elevated Navalny’s status as a political leader. But it is not clear if he knew that the Kremlin would subject him to such a lengthy sentence and force him to serve it out in a penal colony far from Moscow.

“I think it was a miscalculation,” the film’s director, Daniel Roher, recently confessed to NPR. “I spend a lot of time thinking about whether or not it was the right decision, whether or not he could have been more effective outside of Russia as a free man.”

Since his sentencing, Navalny has been subjected to prolonged stays in solitary confinement. It is routine for Russian dissidents to die in prison, a grim reality that recalls the Soviet gulags where millions perished.

Veduta said the assault by guards, which took place on Monday, was precipitated by the placement of a foul-smelling inmate in Navalny’s cell. Navalny’s attorney Vadim Kobzev said the inmate — apparently one whom authorities had previously used to torment Navalny — had been “brought to a completely animal state.”

He added that the “smell in the cell was such that it was impossible to enter” and that Navalny refused to go in.

This angered his guards, evidently precipitating the assault. “By prison rules, [Navalny] had to physically intimidate and beat this person,” Veduta said, referring to the complex informal rules that have historically governed prison life in Russia. “But he refused."

Kira Yarmish, another close Navalny associate, wrote on Twitter that, as a result of the incident, “a new criminal case was opened against him,” which she said could result in “a possible term of up to 5 years.”

Last week, Navalny’s attorneys sent a letter to Kremlin human rights commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova, complaining about his treatment while also warning that Navalny had learned that “a provocation is expected against him with the participation of a cellmate.”

The letter was not answered.

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At least 7,343 children have been deported to Russia and another 236 are still missing since the start of its invasion of Ukraine. (photo: Sergey Chuzavkov/AFP)

Explainer: What We Know About Russia's Deportation of Ukrainian Children
Daria Shulzhenko, The Kyiv Independent
Shulzhenko writes: "In March, the International Criminal Court made a historic ruling: It issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, the Russian official overseeing the forced deportations of Ukrainian children to Russia." 

In March, the International Criminal Court made a historic ruling: It issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, the Russian official overseeing the forced deportations of Ukrainian children to Russia.

The statement by ICC says that Putin is "allegedly responsible" for the unlawful deportation and transfer of children from occupied areas of Ukraine to Russia.

The forced deportations of Ukrainian children to Russia have become one of the darkest and most discussed consequences of Moscow's all-out invasion of Ukraine.

Over 19,000 children have been de facto abducted from the occupied territories and sent to Russia since last February, according to a Ukrainian national database. Only 361 children have been brought back to Ukraine as of April 21.

Here's what we know about the forced deportations of Ukrainian children, where they are held in Russia, and how some are returning home.

How the deportation of children started

Russia had been kidnapping Ukrainian children long before the full-scale invasion: The "unlawful transfer of Ukrainian minors to Russia" began in 2014, according to recent analysis by the European Resilience Initiative Center.

The study says that "one of the largest programs of children relocation" was launched by the late Russian Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights member Elizaveta Glinka, widely known in Russia as "Doctor Liza."

It says that Glinka arranged the "first transfer" of 13 Ukrainian children from occupied Donetsk to Russia in December 2014 and requested Putin to "amend the country's legislation to allow relocations of Ukrainian children from Donbas to Russia on the pretext of providing medical assistance."

Russian state-controlled media outlet TASS claimed in 2017 that Glinka transferred 500 kids from Donbas in 2.5 years. According to the study, Glinka "effectively established a state-sponsored system of Ukrainian children's transfers to Russia."

"This system is nowadays being used by Russia's current Presidential Commissioner for Children's rights Maria Lvova-Belova…"

The Yale School of Public Health report, which the Conflict Observatory published on Feb. 14, says Russia started to "systematically" transport Ukrainian children from occupied territories days before the full-scale invasion in February 2022.

The report says the first transportations of children that were recorded in early February 2022 "included a group of 500 purported orphans" forcibly taken from Donetsk Oblast by Russia. Some of those children were adopted by families in Russia, "like other groups of orphans that would later be brought to Russia after the full-scale invasion," the report reads.

Olha Yerokhina, the spokesperson of Ukrainian NGO Save Ukraine, which helps rescue Ukrainian children from Russian captivity, told the Kyiv Independent that Russia began mass deportations of children from occupied settlements of Kharkiv and Kherson oblasts "under the slogan of rehabilitation and evacuation," shortly after the start of the invasion on Feb. 24, 2022.

The study also says that "additional groups of children would depart Ukraine for camps in Russia under the auspices of free recreational trips" by early March.

Less than a month into Russia's full-scale invasion, Ukraine's Foreign Ministry reported 2,389 children illegally transported from occupied parts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts into Russia.

How many children have been deported

As of April 21, 14 months after the start of the invasion, Ukraine has recorded a total of 19,393 children unlawfully deported to Russia.

"Among these children are orphans, children who have parents, as well as children who have legal guardians or children whose parents died during hostilities," Yerokhina says.

Russia, on the other hand, claims that around 744,000 Ukrainian children have been transferred from Ukraine.

There's a big difference in the numbers since "Russia doesn't provide Ukraine with lists of so-called 'evacuated' children and families, as it should have done according to international law," says Yerokhina.

Daria Kasianova, the national program development director at "SOS Children's Villages" charity, which cooperates with the Ministry for Reintegration of Occupied Territories to return deported children, says the National Information Bureau collects the data on deported children from several sources, including the police, social services, and relatives' reports.

These children get identified and added to the nationwide database of deported children, which now includes 19,000 children. The actual number, however, might be higher.

"When we return children to Ukraine, they tell us about other kids that are kept in Russia, who are not in Ukraine's database," Kasianova told the Kyiv Independent.

According to Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk, 4,396 Ukrainian orphans are now illegally kept in the occupied territories or were forcibly taken to Russia.

Yale School of Public Health has collected information about at least 6,000 Ukrainian children "aged four months to 17 years" who have been held in Russian-controlled camps and other facilities. The study, however, also assumes the actual number might be higher.

How Russians do it

Russian troops follow "five scenarios" to abduct and deport Ukrainian children, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported, citing Daria Herasymchuk, Ukrainian presidential advisor for children's rights.

According to Herasymchuk, they could either kill the parents or take the child directly from the family, guided by the made-up "laws" of Russian-installed authorities. Children could also be separated from their parents in the so-called filtration camps in Russia.

Another option is when children are ordered to go to "recreational camps" for vacations or medical treatment or kidnapped directly from institutions and orphanages in Ukraine's occupied settlements, the media reports.

Yerokhina says they recorded a mass deportation of Ukrainian children from Kherson and Kherson Oblast in autumn.

According to her, "the whole school classes of children were taken to occupied Crimea together with their teachers" under the false claims of evacuation "so that those children allegedly could continue their studies in safety." Yerokhina adds that the children were not returned to their parents "within the agreed time frame."

"Therefore, instead of two or three weeks, children were separated from their parents for six months or longer," she says.`

What happens to these children in Russia

In Russia, deported Ukrainian children are placed in hotels, summer camps, recreation centers, and shelters, where the conditions are often poor, according to the report by a coalition of Ukrainian NGOs that documents Russia's war crimes.

A study by the Yale School of Public Health shows that Moscow has established a whole "network of re-education and adoption facilities" in Russia and occupied Crimea, with 43 camps where Ukrainian children have been held since Feb. 24, 2022, already identified.

"The majority are recreational camps where children are taken for ostensible vacations, while others are facilities used to house children put up for foster care or adoption in Russia," the report reads.

It also says that the camps aim to "integrate" children from occupied territories "into Russian life and enforce a version of Russia's history, culture, and society that serves the political interests of Russia's government."

There, children are told that "Ukraine does not need them, that their parents abandoned them, and nobody will come for them," says Yerokhina.

"Russians separate children from their parents and take advantage of their vulnerable condition to put psychological pressure (on them)," she says.

According to the report, the "widespread re-education" of Ukraine's children has occurred in 32 of the identified camps.

"The systematic pro-Russia education of Ukraine's children takes many forms, including school curriculum, field trips to cultural or patriotic sites throughout the country, lectures from Russia's veterans and historians, and military activities," the report says.

"The meaning of such 're-education' is clear — children who have been in Russia and among Russian propagandists for a long time are more easily influenced by them," Yerokhina says, adding that they aim at erasing their Ukrainian identity.

Putin's easing of the process for Ukrainian orphans and children without parental care to receive Russian citizenship in late May last year has also been seen as "an effort to expedite the process for adopting Ukraine's children into families in Russia," according to the report.

However, it is yet unknown how many children obtained Russian citizenship and how many were adopted.

According to Russian independent media outlet Meduza, local authorities of Russian Krasnodar claimed that over 1,000 children from occupied Mariupol were adopted into Russian families in remote cities such as Tyumen, Irkutsk, Kemerovo, and Altai Krai in August.

In the same month, Lvova-Belova, the Russian official overseeing the deportations, also claimed she had adopted a teenager from Mariupol. She later told Putin she knows what it means "to be a mother of a child from Donbas."

According to Yerokhina, the Save Ukraine initiative has returned children from the occupied Crimea and Russian cities of Anapa, Yeisk, Gelendzhik, Voronezh, as well as Belgorod and Rostov oblasts.

According to Herasymchuk, after returning to Ukraine from Russia, children complained of beatings and other punishments for refusing to sing the Russian anthem and for mentioning that they were Ukrainians. She said that kids were not allowed to go for walks as punishment and were forced to copy texts in Russian.

Also, Russia often uses these children as political props at rallies. Speaking to journalists upon their return to Ukraine, children describe poor treatment towards them.

"The attitude towards us has changed significantly in a month or two. Everyone started hating us because we are Ukrainians because we came from Kherson," the 15-year-old Ukrainian teenager Anastasia told RFE/RL upon her release from the occupied Crimea.

Who is in charge of forced deportation of Ukrainian children

According to the ICC, there are "reasonable grounds to believe" that Putin is directly responsible for overseeing the deportations and that he failed to exercise control over the Russian military personnel and civilians who implemented the crime throughout occupied Ukrainian territory since the start of the full-scale invasion.

Putin can now be arrested in one of the 123 countries that are members of the ICC.

Yale School of Public Health has established that Putin "personally appointed many of the figures involved in this program and publicly supports their efforts."

The report calls Lvova-Belova the "apparent leader" of the operation at the "federal level."

On Feb. 16, Putin even praised Lvova-Belova for her work overseeing the deportation of Ukrainian children, portraying it as a "humanitarian effort" to "protect Russian citizens."

However, the report also says that "all levels of Russia's government are involved" in the deportations of Ukrainian children. According to it, "in the cases of both individuals deemed orphans by Russia and children residing in state institutions, a Russia-appointed institutional authority or a higher level occupation authority directs the transfer of Ukraine's children to Russia-occupied Crimea or Russia."

"Many of these transfers are coordinated by federal officials and conducted in concert with Russia's regional leaders and proxy authorities," the report reads.

The Yale researchers say they have identified "several dozens" of federal, regional, and local figures "directly engaged in operating and politically justifying" the deportation program.

And at least 12 of them were not targeted by the U.S. or other international sanctions as of February.

How is Ukraine returning these children

Since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion, Save Ukraine has rescued 95 Ukrainian children.

During one of its latest missions, the charity brought home 24 kids from Kherson Oblast who Russia had illegally deported.

Yerokhina says that often, mothers of deported children reach out to her NGO, Save Ukraine, to help rescue their kids from captivity. She adds that they never disclose any details of rescue missions beforehand for safety reasons.

Kasianova says that getting to these children in Russia and rescuing them is difficult.

"There were situations when we were in touch with a child and were on the way to rescue them. But when we arrived — the child was no longer there," she says.

As of April 17, Ukraine has only returned a total of 361 children, according to official reports.

Experts say that the country would need further support from its allies and international organizations to bring back the rest of them.

Yerokhina says the UN General Assembly should adopt a resolution "on the need for the immediate repatriation of Ukrainian children." She thinks that the Council of Europe should also adopt a resolution demanding the identification and repatriation of these children.

On April 10, Vereshchuk announced that the Ukrainian government is creating an international coalition to return Ukrainian orphans forcibly relocated by Russia.

According to Vereshchuk, the coalition will need an intermediary, and that "can be anyone," including the International Committee of the Red Cross, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and the UN International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF).

"In this case, the help of the world community is critical to us," Vereshchuk told the parliamentary TV channel Rada. "I hope that such a platform will start operating soon."

President Volodymyr Zelensky called the arrest warrant issued by the ICC a "turning point" in Russia's war against Ukraine. He said that after this legal step, "it becomes undeniable that the end of this aggression for Russia will be the full range of its responsibility."

"Responsibility for every strike on Ukraine, for every destroyed life, for every deported Ukrainian child," Zelensky said.

"The evil state will be held accountable for every act of terror against Ukrainians," he added.

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To Understand the Upcoming Republican Primary, Follow the Dark Money
Andrew Perez, Jacobin
Perez writes: "The operative leading Ron DeSantis's super PAC is closely associated with conservative activist Leonard Leo, the beneficiary of the largest dark money donation in US history. But Leo's not putting all his eggs in one basket for the 2024 presidential election."  

The operative leading Ron DeSantis’s super PAC is closely associated with conservative activist Leonard Leo, the beneficiary of the largest dark money donation in US history. But Leo’s not putting all his eggs in one basket for the 2024 presidential election.

The Republican operative leading the super PAC backing Florida governor and likely Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis was closely involved with a record-breaking dark money donation to conservative legal activist Leonard Leo, the architect of the Supreme Court’s rightward swing, according to records obtained by the Lever.

Chris Jankowski, CEO of the pro-DeSantis group Never Back Down, is listed in the documents as the “settlor” — effectively, the creator — of the Marble Freedom Trust, a massive pool of cash Leo is using to finance conservative advocacy groups.

In 2021, the trust received $1.6 billion from the sale of Chicago businessman Barre Seid’s surge-protector empire, constituting the largest known dark money donation in history and leaving Leo in control of an unprecedented political advocacy fund.

The role Jankowski played in developing the Marble Freedom Trust has not previously been reported, though he has for years served as a consultant for Leo’s dark money network, which played a central role in flipping control of the Supreme Court and building its 6–3 conservative supermajority.

“Mr. Leo has known Chris Jankowski for many years and considers him one of the most effective political strategists in the country,” said a spokesperson at Leo’s consulting firm, CRC Advisors. “Governor DeSantis’s Never Back Down PAC is fortunate to have him there.”

Never Back Down and Jankowski did not respond to the Lever’s requests for comment.

Jankowski’s current role with the DeSantis super PAC is just one place where Leo’s influence will be felt throughout the 2024 Republican presidential primary. Leo, who helped select and install three Supreme Court nominees as President Donald Trump’s top judicial adviser, has used his dark money network to distribute major donations to nonprofits affiliated with several other potential primary contenders, including Mike Pence and Nikki Haley.

Leo’s ties to DeSantis are perhaps the most extensive among the potential 2024 Republican presidential contenders. The Florida Republican’s crusade against “woke capital” and his recent decision to sign a six-week abortion ban seem to be perfectly calibrated to appeal to Leo, a hard-line social conservative who has financed a broader messaging war against “woke capitalism.”

“Lead Consultant to the Judicial Crisis Network”

Jankowski, a longtime conservative operative, is best known for spearheading the Republican State Leadership Committee’s highly successful 2010 Project Redmap campaign — an effort to tip state house elections across the country and then use the redistricting process to help the GOP lock in a long-lasting advantage in congressional and state legislative elections.

Since 2014, Jankowski has been periodically identified as a consultant with the Judicial Crisis Network, a key dark money cog in Leo’s campaign to remake both the federal and state courts.

“In 2016 to 2018, Chris served as a lead consultant to the Judicial Crisis Network’s successful Supreme Court confirmation campaigns,” read Jankowski’s bio on one conservative nonprofit’s website. “These efforts blocked the nomination of Merrick Garland and pushed for confirmation of Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. These unprecedented efforts, with almost $30 million spent, helped create a new conservative majority on the court.”

Records obtained by the Lever show that Jankowski helped Leo establish the Marble Freedom Trust, his $1.6 billion landmark dark money fund. Jankowski was the trust’s settlor — which generally means a trust’s creator or donor.

The donation for the trust came from Seid, who, as part of his “attack philanthropy” strategy, gifted the entirety of his electronics business to the trust, which then sold it.

Now Jankowski is helming Never Back Down, a super PAC that’s preparing to help perform core campaign operations to boost DeSantis, despite the fact that such outside groups cannot directly coordinate with candidates.

On Wednesday, the Washington Post reported that officials at Never Back Down have “been telling donors they intend to push the bounds of what an independent effort can do in presidential years” and are planning “a major push into the sort of organizing in early states that has historically been undertaken by candidates themselves.”

The Post added that “Never Back Down could receive a transfer of the more than $85 million that DeSantis has in a state fundraising account if he becomes a candidate.”

DeSantis’s Leo-World Ties

In recent years, Jankowski was listed on the board of advisers at N2 America, a dark money group designed to boost the GOP’s image in the suburbs. The organization campaigned for schools to resume in-person learning amid the COVID-19 pandemic and boosted the confirmation of Trump’s 2020 Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett.

Tax records show N2 America was primarily funded by Leo’s Concord Fund, which donated at least $1 million to N2 America between 2020 and 2021. The organization reported raising $1.5 million during that time.

DeSantis’s nascent campaign operation includes several other N2 America alumni.

Generra Peck, the organization’s vice president, is reportedly expected to serve as DeSantis’s 2024 campaign manager if he runs, and is currently working as a consultant for his Florida-level political committee.

Phil Cox, who served on N2 America’s board of advisers, is serving as a senior adviser to Never Back Down, the DeSantis super PAC led by Jankowski.

Peck and Cox helped lead DeSantis’s 2022 gubernatorial reelection campaign. Peck previously worked at Cox’s consulting firms.

The DeSantis super PAC’s leadership team also includes Ken Cuccinelli, a former Virginia attorney general and Trump administration official.

Since 2021, Cuccinelli has been the national chairman of the Election Transparency Initiative — an effort designed to protect Republican voter suppression laws around the country — which is part of the Susan B. Anthony List, an antiabortion advocacy group.

Leo’s network donated $2.3 million to the Susan B. Anthony List between July 2020 and June 2021.

Hedging His Bets

DeSantis isn’t the only potential GOP presidential contender with significant ties to Leo.

Leo’s Concord Fund contributed $1 million in 2020–21 to Advancing American Freedom, a nonprofit chaired by former vice president Mike Pence that is serving as a “campaign-in-waiting,” according to Politico.

Since 2018, the Leo network has donated $1.5 million to Stand for America, a dark money group founded by Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and Trump United Nations ambassador.

“I’m running for president to renew an America that’s proud and strong, not weak and woke,” Haley said in a speech last month to conservative activists. “Wokeness is a virus more dangerous than any pandemic, hands down.”

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Book Bans in US Public Schools Increase by 28% in Six Months, Pen Report Finds
Martin Pengelly, Guardian UK
Pengelly writes: "Writers organisation denounces 'relentless' Republican crusade as 1,477 books banned in first half of 2022-23 school year."  

Writers organisation denounces ‘relentless’ Republican crusade as 1,477 books banned in first half of 2022-23 school year

Book bans in US public schools increased by 28% in the first half of the 2022-23 academic year, the writers’ organisation Pen America said on Thursday, describing a “relentless” conservative “crusade to constrict children’s freedom to read”.

Releasing a new report, Banned in the USA: State Laws Supercharge Book Suppression in Schools, Pen said the increase was over figures for the previous six months.

“Censorious legislation in states across the country has been a driving force behind new restrictions on access to books in public schools,” it said.

“Since Pen America started tracking public school book bans in July 2021, [it] has recorded more than 4,000 instances of banned books … this includes 1,477 individual book bans affecting 874 unique titles during the first half of the 2022-23 school year.”

Book bans are more common in Republican-run states. According to Pen, “seven districts in Texas were responsible for 438 instances of individual book bans, and 13 districts in Florida were responsible for 357 bans”.

It added: “Of the 1,477 books banned this school year, 30% are about race, racism or include characters of colour, while 26% have LGBTQ+ characters or themes.”

Pen also highlighted “the misapplication of labels such as ‘pornographic’ or ‘indecent’ by activists and politicians to justify the removal of books that do not remotely fit the well-established legal and colloquial definitions of pornography.

“Alarmist rhetoric about ‘porn in schools’ has been a significant factor behind such mischaracterisations, which routinely conflate books that contain any sexual content or include LGBTQ+ characters with ‘pornography’.”

According to Pen, the most frequently banned books in the 2022-23 US school year were Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe, Flamer by Mike Curato, Tricks by Ellen Hopkins and The Handmaid’s Tale: a Graphic Novel by Margaret Atwood and Renée Nault.

Atwood last year supported Pen by auctioning an “un-burnable” edition of her dystopian feminist novel, which was published in 1985 and became the inspiration for a hit TV series. It raised $130,000.

Atwood said then: “Free speech issues are being hotly debated, and Pen is a sane voice [amid] all the shouting.”

Book bans have not been without political blowback.

In Florida on Wednesday, so-called “don’t say gay” laws regarding the teaching of gender and LGBTQ+ issues were expanded from public elementary schools to the whole state system. But the Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, last week saw a major donor pause support for his nascent presidential run, citing book bans as one policy of concern.

Interactive Brokers founder Thomas Peterffy told the Financial Times: “I have put myself on hold. Because of his stance on abortion and book banning … myself, and a bunch of friends, are holding our powder dry.”

The Pen chief executive, Suzanne Nossel, said: “The heavy-handed tactics of state legislators are mandating book bans, plain and simple.

“Some politicians like Ron DeSantis have tried to dismiss the rise in book bans as a ‘hoax’. But their constituents and supporters are not fooled. The numbers don’t lie, and reveal a relentless crusade to constrict children’s freedom to read.”

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Guard Actions in Mexico Fire Seen as Key to Who Lived, Died
Maria Verza, Associated Press
Verza writes: "When a fire broke out at a Mexican immigration detention facility last month, dramatically different reactions by guards in the men's and women's sections appeared to make a difference in who lived and died, according to previously unreported surveillance videos and witness statements viewed by The Associated Press."    

When a fire broke out at a Mexican immigration detention facility last month, dramatically different reactions by guards in the men’s and women’s sections appeared to make a difference in who lived and died, according to previously unreported surveillance videos and witness statements viewed by The Associated Press.

Forty male detainees perished in the March 27 blaze, allegedly started by a male migrant in protest of their conditions the facility in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas. All 15 of the female detainees safely escaped from their side of the facility as it began to fill with smoke.

The videos show that in the hours before the fire, the deadliest ever at a migration detention center in the country, private security guards contracted by Mexico’s immigration agency used keys to open the men’s section to allow cleaning personnel to enter and to bring them large jugs of water.

However once the fire started, no one tried to open it again despite the presence of guards nearby. Meanwhile, on the women’s side, a female security guard sprinted through the building with keys she said the immigration official in charge of that wing had given her. That official, Gloria Liliana Ramos, is among those charged with homicide.

A central question for investigators remains: Where were the keys to the men’s section when the fire started?

Seven people – five immigration agents, a private security guard and the migrant who allegedly started the fire – have been charged with homicide and causing injury.

On Friday, an initial hearing for the head of Mexico’s National Immigration Institute was delayed until Tuesday, because his defense team said they had not been given access to the investigative case file. Francisco Garduño is accused of failing in his responsibility to protect migrants. One of his lieutenants, Antonio Molina, the agency’s verification director, was back in court to face accusations that he did not ensure decent conditions for migrants. A prosecutor noted that on the night of the fire 16 of the 68 male migrants held had not even been registered yet.

Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the contents of the videos and witness statements, which were provided to AP by a lawyer for one of the accused.

On the evening of the fire, they show, male migrants began to press mattresses against the bars to block guards’ view of what was happening inside. They also apparently unplugged surveillance cameras that they were able to access.

One man allegedly set fire to a foam mattress, and within seconds smoke began to fill the area. A previously seen surveillance video clip showed guards approach the bars but then walk away without trying to open the gate.

The immigration official who was in charge of the men’s side that evening was Rodolfo Collazo. In his statement to investigators, Collazo said that shortly before the fire erupted he had left to take two minors to another facility, placing the private security supervisor in charge and leaving behind the keys to the men’s section.

Ramos, his counterpart on the women’s side, confirmed in her own statement that Collazo had left the private supervisor in charge.

An analysis of surveillance video by forensic investigator Luis Fermín Cal y Mayor for one of the defense teams concluded that the keys to the men’s section were in the possession of the private security guards minutes before the fire started. That contradicts accounts from those guards in statements to government investigators saying that when the blaze began, they were in a bathroom filling jugs with water for the migrants and did not have the keys.

In the women’s section, another private security guard, Angélica Hinojosa, ran out when the blaze began — to get help, she said later. She returned a short time later followed by a member of the National Guard.

Hinojosa is seen on video racing through the building as female migrants begin to cover their noses and mouths amid the increasingly dense smoke. She later told investigators that when “it started to smell bad and I saw a lot of smoke,” she asked Ramos for the keys. The women’s section was opened, and everyone escaped, retracing Hinojosa’s steps to the building’s entrance.

Female migrants told government investigators they heard shouts from the men’s side of the facility, including desperate calls for water and questions about where the keys were.

Ramos’ lawyer, Aglaeth González, said Ramos saved lives and should not be charged with a crime. González said she still has not been allowed access to surveillance videos, and immigration officials she tried to interview refused to talk citing fears of reprisals.

Collazo, the official who had left with the underage migrants, returned to find the facility ablaze. He told investigators he tried to enter to find the keys, but was turned back by the smoke. He is among those facing criminal charges of homicide and causing injury.

One of the private security guards told investigators that a colleague, one of those now charged with homicide, did go back inside and found the keys on a desk. That guard managed to open a back door but not another lock inside, he said.

The area remained sealed off until firefighters arrived and broke down a wall, and only then were those migrants still alive able to escape. More than two dozen were injured, but survived.

Lawyers for the accused have also questioned whether prosecutors have sufficiently analyzed the hours of video from the surveillance cameras, which numbered more than a dozen.

The countries where the victims came from have demanded a transparent investigation to find and hold responsible any officials and employees who share blame for the deaths, including those high up the chain of command.

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Small Cats Face Big Threats: Reasons to Save These Elusive Endangered Species
Sean Mowbray, Mongabay
Mowbray writes: "Scotland's population of wildcats (Felis silvestris silvestris) has dwindled to the point that it is functionally extinct, with fewer than 30 likely left in the wild." 

Scotland’s population of wildcats (Felis silvestris silvestris) has dwindled to the point that it is functionally extinct, with fewer than 30 likely left in the wild. Conservationists are rushing to save the species — also known as the Scottish wildcat or Highland tiger — through a reintroduction program set to kick off later this year.

A combination of habitat loss, persecution and, most recently, hybridization with domestic cats drove the species to its current crisis point. But the Highland tiger isn’t alone in its predicament, and it can be seen as a possible indicator of looming ecosystem collapse: The United Kingdom is one of the most nature-depleted places on Earth.

Bringing the Scottish wildcat back could have a plethora of benefits, says Richard Bunting, a spokesperson for the Scottish Rewilding Alliance. The Highland cat, along with small cats the world over, plays a key ecological role by controlling small mammal populations in their natural habitats. Many cats, though maligned, also aid farmers by reducing rodents. In Scotland, the cat’s return could also boost local economies through activities such as wildlife observation and ecotourism.

“What I would like to see is the restoration of wild cats, like the Scottish wildcat, driving better [habitat] quality and better-connected ecosystems,” says Helen Senn, program manager at the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland.

Researchers and conservationists, like Senn, underline another key reason behind the often-imperiled state of small cats globally: They largely roam beneath the public and policy radar, moving stealthily and unseen across the landscape. So they remain understudied, with their key conservation status not fully explored and underfunded.

A fuller understanding of the key roles these wild felid species play in maintaining healthy ecosystems and how their presence benefits people could help put small cats in the conservation spotlight in time to prevent some species blinking out of existence.

Small cats around the world

A remarkable range of wild felid diversity and adaptability exists under the umbrella of “small cats,” an imprecise label that differentiates them from “big cats” such as lions, tigers and jaguars.

Small cats range in size from South Asia’s diminutive rusty-spotted cat (Prionailurus rubiginosus), which, at 0.8-1.6 kilograms (1.8-3.5 pounds), is the world’s smallest wild felid; to the far larger two species of clouded leopard (Neofelis diardi and N. nebulosa). Weighing in at up to 23 kg (50 lbs), clouded leopards are often referred to as modern-day saber-toothed tigers and ambiguously classified as “big small cats” by some or “small big cats” by others.

This expansive group of reclusive felids inhabits an astounding range of habitats, from deserts and savanna grasslands to tropical and temperate forests, enlivening alpine heights and low coastal wetlands as well as human-dominated agricultural landscapes.

“Each of these small cat species is uniquely adapted to survive within its habitat type and serve important ecological roles,” says Priya Singh, a wildlife researcher in India. “However, given their small sizes and inconspicuous behavior, they often get neglected by conservation initiatives or wildlife management plans.”

Like their big cat cousins, these smaller species face a host of threats including habitat loss and fragmentation, persecution due to human-wildlife conflict, climate change, diseases spread by domestic animals, the risk of becoming road kill and pollution, including plastics ingestion in some cases.

Of the more than 30 small cat species, a dozen are currently considered threatened or endangered by the IUCN, including the African golden cat (Caracal aurata), Andean cat (Leopardus jacobita), Borneo bay cat (Catopuma badia), Black-footed cat (Felis negripes), Chinese mountain cat (F. bieti), fishing cat (P. viverrinus), Flat-headed cat (P. planiceps), Guiña (L. guigna), the northern and southern tiger cat (L. tigrinus and L. guttulus) and both species of clouded leopard. Recently, researchers called for the semi-arboreal marbled cat (Pardofelis marmorata) to be added to the list.

Conservationists underline that these cats — being small and midlevel predators — play an invaluable role in maintaining ecosystem health, controlling prey and disease and thereby benefiting human communities across the globe.

Small cats help sustain healthy ecosystems — but how much?

Pallas’ cat (Otocolobus manul), or Manul, became a small cat super star when it was described as the “grumpiest cat in world” by naturalist and presenter David Attenborough. When not starring in cute memes or grouchy GIFs, Pallas’ cat roams the steppes of Central Asia and helps maintain the health of the grassland habitat via its dietary habits, as it preys upon pika and other small rodents.

The ecological well-being of this vast landscape is vital to local people, especially pastoral farmers. And more recently it became critically important nationally due to the recognition of the steppe’s value as a carbon sink, Emma Nygren, head of conservation programs at the Pallas’s Cat International Conservation Alliance, writes in an email.

“Conservation of the Pallas’ cat not only helps us protect an iconic small cat species of Central Asia, but also has an indirect role in protecting the steppe grassland,” Nygren says. While the small cat’s ecosystem maintenance role could be major, it’s extent still isn’t fully known.

The Andean cat, Latin America’s most endangered wild felid, is well-equipped to thrive in harsh environments. “Its large tail helps it chase down vizcachas [rodents resembling rabbits]. Its thick, fluffy coat helps it survive the cold, and it seems to be able to survive well with very little water,” says Anthony Gerardo Pino Charaja, a biologist and communications coordinator for the Andean Cat Alliance.

However, “I can’t say that if the Andean cat goes extinct, this or that is going to happen. But if [something bad] happens, we won’t know until it’s too late,” he adds. “It’s not like the tropical forests where if a species disappears, another can take its place [occupying its same niche] to an extent.”

Without small cats, the ecosystems in which they dwell “will definitely be poorer,” as they would likely see significant changes, especially explosions in small mammal and rodent numbers, Tiasa Adhya, an India-based co-founder of the Fishing Cat Project, writes in an email. But again, because of the general lack of research, “What effect [small cat extinction] would have on the ecosystem one can only hypothesize.”

Adhya’s group focuses on the fishing cat, a wetland specialist found in Asia that not only eats fish but also birds, small mammals and reptiles. “It can thus be assumed that the [species] plays an important role in maintaining food web dynamics in ecosystems,” Adhya writes, adding that the fishing cat likely also aids in recycling wetlands nutrients.

In an increasingly nature-depleted world, amid an escalating global biodiversity crisis, the role of smaller carnivores can, in some instances, be heightened when larger predators are wiped out. In Africa’s equatorial forest, for example, the African golden cat — a species once described as the continent’s least known cat — offers signs of being just such a case, says Badru Mugerwa of the conservation organization Embaka.

Leopards and African golden cats once roamed together through Africa’s forests, covering a large range. But with the decline of the leopard, the golden cat has now become one of the largest forest-dwelling predators in some places, including Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in Uganda. “In areas where the leopard is absent, the African golden cat often goes for bigger prey, such as small antelopes, or forest duikers,” Mugerwa says. But, “When you go to areas where the leopard is still present, the African golden cat feeds mostly on small rodents.”

A study released last year argues that some small cats — along with other small carnivores — could act as important bellwethers of ecosystem health, possibly more so than their big cat cousins. That’s because some of these small cats are specialists and can experience a greater sensitivity to changes, with their precipitous decline serving as strong indicators of failing ecosystem health, says Wai-Ming Wong, director of Panthera’s Small Cats Program.

“For some of the small cats that have these very specialized habitat niches, if you make any small changes, they don’t really have anywhere else to go,” he explains.

“A free colleague” serving farmers

The ecological role of small cats in their natural habitat can greatly benefit people, with some experts even calling them a “free colleague” to farmers and other rural people.

Santanu Mahato grew up in an agricultural-dominated landscape in India, and from a young age he regularly spotted the jungle cat, or golden jackal, hanging around farmlands. “I didn’t notice or observe them in a scientific way, or the way we see them as a researcher,” he says.

As a biologist, he set out to study the interactions of the jungle cat on farmers’ land, investigating the varied roles they play in pastoral landscapes. Based on limited studies in India, each jungle cat is now thought to consume at least 3-5 rodents per day, possibly gobbling down as many as 1,000 per year.

But like other small cats, jungle cats will readily catch chickens. This behavior can bring them into direct conflict with people and shift perceptions against them. However, after analyzing scat samples, Mahato found that the jungle cat predominantly feasts on rats, a trait that benefits local people, though it’s one that few recognized, he says.

Instead, people viewed the sometimes chicken-eating cats as pests. Practicing peaceful coexistence with the jungle cats, along with other small carnivores, he suggests, would likely result in less damage to important crops.

These jungle cat findings are echoed by other research. The highly adaptable leopard cat (P. bengalensis) is often present on oil palm plantations in Southeast Asia, where it mostly preys on rodents. Researchers argue that maintaining “biological pest controllers” of this kind can enable farmers to reduce the use of harmful chemical pesticides and cut agricultural costs.

“Our work with leopard cats has really shown that it is better to do a proper biological assessment of what is already in place, and utilize these [wild] species as pest controllers by enriching their habitat,” Carl Traeholt, Southeast Asia program director at Copenhagen Zoo, writes in an email. “Leopard cats are especially effective because they are opportunistic, whereas most other small cats are not found in a plantation at all.”

Half a world away, in the United States, wild cat conservation organization Panthera is launching a research project to understand the role bobcats play in controlling mountain beavers, which cause millions of dollars in damage to foresters’ lands in Washington state. Maintaining bobcat populations could help keep the beavers in check, Wong says.

Understanding the ecological role of small cats and educating people to their economic benefits could be a gateway to changing hearts and minds about species that are often maligned, considered pests and killed, say researchers.

“Flagships” for nature and rewilding

Though many threats to wild felids can be complex and problematic, some, such as conflict with humans, can be easier to resolve than with bigger cats, say experts. That fact offers hope for smaller wild felids.

Maintaining these populations is vital, say conservationists, who warn that so little is known about many small cat species that they could be serving vital ecological functions we’ve yet to discern. The elusive flat-headed cat and Borneo bay cat offer two such examples. “It would be prudent to conserve [them] while we still have the chance,” Adhya writes.

Aside from their underappreciated pest control capacity, and their positive influence on ecosystem food chains, small cats could serve an even greater, broader, and still mostly unrecognized role in conservation, Luke Hunter, executive director of Big Cats Program at the Wildlife Conservation Society, tells Mongabay in an interview.

“Big cats offer a really good umbrella for conservation,” because they engender so much public support and interest, he says. “But I think there’s something to be valued in small cats, which often isn’t [recognized]. They can have huge potential as a secondary [conservation] backup.”

They could potentially serve as “flagships” to help promote conservation in areas devoid of big charismatic species, say other experts: The fishing cat or flat-headed cat could, for example, become the face of threatened wetlands. Ocelots or margays could play the role of flagships in forests, where bigger cats may not roam, while the acrobatic serval cat could be an additional ambassador for African grasslands.

Echoing Bunting and Senn’s assertion that the Highland tiger could become the feline face of Scotland’s drive to rewild, Wong sees similar potential for small cats everywhere. “I think some small cats can make a really great candidate for that [flagship role] because they already occur outside of protected areas in human dominated landscapes,” he says.

In the case of Scotland’s reintroduction, success remains uncertain. But conservationists are buoyed by the comeback of the Iberian lynx in Spain, where the small cat rebounded from just 200 or so individuals in the wild near the start of the 21st century to more than 1,300 today.

Senn thinks Scotland’s wildcat experience offers lessons for global conservation. “It’s important that people care as much about small cats as they do about big cats, and that we continue to fill all the knowledge gaps to make sure we’re doing our best to monitor populations,” she says. Effective conservation interventions need to take place early on, before it’s too late; “which is unfortunately where we’ve got to with wildcats in Scotland.”

This article was originally published on Mongabay

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